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Twilight, Storm & Winter Whales

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Tromsø, Northern Norway, 27/1- 2018

Since January 6, I've been in Northern Norway to continue this season's winter whale guiding for Waterproof Expeditions

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Like our previous four winter whale trips in November, we use M/S Malmö as our comfortable home and mobile whale searching base during the 6 days x 5 liveaboard trips. Now, in January and February,
I´m here for total five weeks, guiding together with my brilliant co-guide Eirik Grønningsæter and the awesome crew onboard the ship.

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With approximately three hours of twilight bright enough for searching and finding the whales, the first trip possibly added an unexpected Arctic experience for the guests, who seemed quite impressed by the very long nights and short twilight days...

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Even though the amount of whales already showed up to have been decreasing compared to November, we found good numbers of both orcas and humpback whales inside the fjords and got many charming and curious encounters with the animals, both above and underwater.

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Arctic winter can get rough and stormy here in Norway, which is what our second group got to experience. Despite the cold, turbulent weather, with rough sea conditions and over 50 knots of wind also inside the fjord, we went out searching for the whales every day...

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Thanks to the hard working crew, great team work, and our very patient and enthusiastic guests, the challenging conditions didn’t prevent us to find and observe the majestic giants every single day. This resulted in many really good topside observations :-)

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On the last day of trip 2, the conditions finally were calm enough to safely be able to load the zodiacs to get some beautiful and very appreciated underwater encounters with the adorable cetaceans.

On day two during trip 3, we finally got dreamlike conditions with flat sea and no wind. As the whale sightings inside the fjords now were very few and rare, we therefore took advantage of this perfect day, searching for the whales further out at sea instead.

After three hours of intense search, we finally spotted a big group of feeding orcas. With the great number of orcas feeding on a slow moving baitball, surrounded by a huge amount of seabirds, and with the grandiose winter landscape and an amazingly colourful sky as background, the entire setup was like taken from a fairy tale!

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Our lucky snorkelers got to experience this very special moment also underwater, where they observed the co-operation between the orcas when carousel feeding on the herring.

Also very small baby orcas, probably only some few days old, were seen in the group. A magic afternoon this truly was!

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After this perfect day, the weather deteriorated again and we had to continue the search inside the more sheltered fjords.

It seems, however, that the winter whale season have found an end as both the orcas and humpback whales have continued their migration further out at sea, leaving only some very few animals left in the area.

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The video below is from the magic afternoon we got to experience with the feeding orcas in outer Sørøysund/Lopphavet some few days ago.

With two weeks and two more trips left, I am now (like always) looking forward to soon get out at sea again to continue the search for the creatures we adore so much. Fingers crossed!!

More updates from our time here in Northern Norway on my Facebook: Birgitta Mueck

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Birgitta Mueck:

"Deep, vast oceans, mysterious forests or breathtaking heights, with this blog I want to share my immense passion for wonderful planet Earth. Through my work I hope to spread a keen interest in our environment and its vulnerable inhabitants. Sharing my life´s ventures in nature and among wildlife, both underwater and above. Adventures to inspirit life, raise awareness and inspire others."